Rich Source Materials
This week's required readings were very rich in terms of wonderful and diverse articles on a variety of topics: Affect & Interest Awareness, Game Design, Digital Gaming & Student Engagement, Students' Motivation & their Social Context. These articles illustrated the dynamic research that is taking place in a plethora of academic areas, which secondary and post-secondary instructors might draw upon to promote students' interest and engagement. Some of the reading insights I found the most interesting included the following:
(1). Affect & Interest Awareness
- Motivational and affective processes can interact to influence cognitive and behavioral outcomes (P&S, Chpt. 7, p. 281): This research finding is so important for teachers to understand and internalize. If students are feeling anxious or depressed about their academic studies, their achievement scores are going to be impacted. Students might exhibit self-protective (i.e., task(s) avoidance) or self-sabotaging (i.e., procrastination) behavior as forms of coping measures to deal with their emotional disequilibrium. If a teacher sees the above type of behaviors in students, it is sometimes good to have a very brief individual conferences or private side talks with the students to find out what is going on in their lives, so that together they might form an action plan to help deal with any particular stress and get the students back on track academically.
(2). Game Design & Student Engagement
- First of all, I did not know that the computer and video games industry was so profitable in the United States: "$6 billion dollars was spent in the United States in 2001" (Dickey, 2005, p.67). This data is 10 years old, so one can just imagine what the spending dollar amount is in 2011. More surprising is that Wang, Khoo, Liu, Aharan (2008) revealed that the video-game industry is now giving the movie industry a run for its money (Passion and Intrinsic Motivation in Digital Gaming, p. 39).
- Second, although published research exists about the cognitive benefits shown in students that actively, play computer and video games, there is a dearth in research that shows the motivational benefits of having students engage in game-playing in an academic setting with educational games. In table 1: A Comparison of Engaged Learning and Game Design Elements, Dickey reveals clear alignments between motivational learning pedagogy and game design. Dickey believes that instructional designers can play pivotal roles in creating engaging and interactive learning environments by viewing game design as "a type of guiding architecture" (p.79). From the perspective of a novice instructional designer who is starting her professional training, models are great to see and learn from when not having any prerequisite schema to draw upon.
- Negative peer influence: My older sister is going through this problem with my 14 year old niece right now. My niece is doing well in school; however, she formed friendships with two neighborhood girls that do not go to her high school. Currently, the problem is that my niece stopped doing her house chores when she gets home from school; instead, she tends to hang out with these girls, who seem to be only interested in partying. Although my sister told my niece that she is against the friendships, my niece is not listening to her because the two girls are very popular with the neighborhood boys. It seems that she thinks friendship and association with these girls will promote interest with her. My sister is very distraught over this whole situation and just does not know what to do because it seems eventually negative peer pressure and after school activities will start to impact my niece's academic achievement. So as I read the chapter on social context, negative influences seem not only a challenge to teachers in the school setting, but also represents a challenge to concerned parents who want only the best for their kids.
~Aja
References
Dickey, M.D. (2007, June). Engaging by design: How engagement strategies in popular computer and video games can inform instructional design. Educational technology research and development, 55(3), 253-273.
Pintrich, P. R., & Schunk, D.H. (2002). Motivation in education: Theory, research, and applications. (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Merrill.
Wang, C.K.J, Khoo, A., Liu, W.C., & Divaharan, S. (2008). Passion and intrinsic motivation in digital gaming. Cyberpsychology & behavior, 11(1),
